a review of books, websites, movies, or anything worth reviewing with comments about libraries and librarianship

Friday, February 15, 2008

Special Orders Don't Upset Us at Thomas Ford

Lately, I have been making numerous special orders to get books not available through Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon. I'm finding most of these items through news stories or features in the Chicago Tribune. Today the item is My Fall From Grace by James J. Laski, which is touted in a column by John Kass. The columnist says that in the book "Laski discusses crooked Chicago politics, Mayor Richard M. Daley's selective memory, and the mayor's private advice to Laski on the use of 'buffers' just like in 'The Godfather' movies." The place to order this self-published book is a website called Author House.

Stop the presses: Now the book is on Amazon. I'm sure it was not there earlier. Well, pretty sure.

Earlier in the week, the book was A Mile Square of Chicago by Marjorie Warville Bear. According to columnist Eric Zorn, it is "a sprawling and meticulously detailed remembrance of the neighborhood of Bear's youth -- the area on the West Side between Ashland and Western Avenues, from Lake Street on the north to Harrison Street on the south, just after the turn of the 20th Century." In his Sunday column, Zorn reported that Bear finished the book 38 years ago and died 26 years ago. The only way to get this posthumous publication is through Google Base. I ordered the book Monday, and it was here on Wednesday.

A month ago, the book was Life is Delicious: A Collection of Recipes from the Hinsdale Junior Women's Club, which was reviewed in the "Good Eating Section" of the Tribune on January 9. Hinsdale is a neighboring suburb of Western Springs, so we wanted the book. The book is available via the organization's website. I called the toll free number and a member hand delivered the book a couple of days later.

All of these books are of local interest. We want to have as much as we can about the Chicago are for students and general readers who grew up in the area. With the library credit card and our Internet access, we continue to watch for items like these.

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I am a reference librarian at the Thomas Ford Memorial Library who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. I have worked in public libraries in Texas, Missouri, and Illinois. I am interested in promoting reference services and the reading of good books.